Medical tourism, which focuses on attracting foreign patients, is getting into the spotlight, and causing other industries to heat up. To deal with these matters, Seocho-gu held an event called the ‘Seocho-gu Global Healthcare Advisory Committee’ which centered around 6 members.

Held on the 5th floor of the Seocho-gu office, the ‘Seocho-gu Global Healthcare Committee,’ discussed the issues of healthcare policy making, the important of setting industrial standards, creating jobs through improving medical tourism, as well as ways to improve competitiveness across all regions.

At this Seocho-gu Global Healthcare Committee, the top 6 members of domestic medical tourism were present. First, representative Wonjin Park of Wonjin Plastic Surgery Clinic, Dr. Hoogeun Chun of the Cancer hospital at Seoul Sumgmo Hospital who is also Vice-chairman of the Foreign Cooperation department, President of the Seocho-gu Medical Association Wonkyung Kang, President of the Seocho-gu Global Healthcare Committee Kyunghoon Sung, Executive Director Seokkyu Kim of the luxury hotel Seoul Palace, Executive Director Hakyoung Ahn of the representative Korean traditional restaurant Sooraon, and other were appointed to be active members of the committee for 2 years.

Committee members were appointed to improve Seocho-gu medical tourism, providing discounts at accommodations for foreigner patients and their families, and providing tourism information to foreign patients in cooperation with each other.

Representative Wonjin Park of Wonjin Plastic Surgery Clinic states, “We believe through this joint effort, it will become a great competitive advantage in the field of medical tourism and attracting foreign patients. While it is true that our government’s support in the endeavor is lacking in comparison to competitors’ aggressive government support in Thailand and Taiwan, we hope through this committee’s efforts government support for this industry will increase.”

Seocho-gu is making efforts to improve the current medical tourism market. Such efforts include, creating synergy among various organizations in the global healthcare (medical tourism), hosting a Chinese overseas lecture, opening the Seocho Global Healthcare website (http://globalhealthcare.seocho.go.kr), holding domestic fairs and pushing various government efforts for medical tourism.